Thu Mar 10, 2011 11:02 am by iblunder
I was also a fan of the Insight engine, and am disappointed to hear that it has been "removed". I have a couple of comments.
(1) When I signed up for Premium, this was one of the features I signed up for. Given that it's been removed, I feel a little like I've been cheated. Even without the insight engine, I still think premium membership is terrific value, but I'd have had to think a little longer before renewing my membership if I'd known the insight engine wouldn't have been with us for long.
(2) Kapitsa mentions that the system is now only good for the first few moves, where it compared with a game database. This was the case, but now I find that it doesn't help there either. Is this part of the same change? Again, a disppointing development. If it is deliberate, it rather leaves me wondering "What is the point of that second tab with it's whirling circle?"
(3) With the insight engine gone, I think it may be time for some improvements to the other features. I have some suggestions:
(i) In the Premium videos it would be good if a position we were asked to think about was the position displayed at that point. Often in AMs "How good is your chess?" videos (as well as others) we are invited to think what the next move should be. However this frequently happens when the presenter has already started exploring a sideline and we are left looking at the final position of the sideline rather than the one we are meant to be thinking about.
(ii) With "insight" gone more emphasis is placed on home analysis. This would be easier if we could download a single PGN containing multiple games, rather than having to process each game separately. To make this a really great feature, you could make the games included in the PGN dependent on user provided parameters such as date (or better between two dates), ECO code(s), player colour, opponent name, result (win, draw or loss not 1-0, 1/2-1/2, 0-1 as that means different things dependant on player colour), time control. Each of these should be optional with the ability to not limit the results by that parameter (or to choose "All").
I look forward to your response.